Tuesday, 08 April 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: At the beginning of the afternoon tour we had another bout of rain, but the sky cleared up a lot during the tour and we got to enjoy some whale watching with sunshine and multiple rainbows. At both ends of our first rainbow we saw blows from 2 Humpback Whales. The first individual was quite elusive though - it stayed under water for very long dives and traveled very quickly. We decided to give it its space and visited the second individual we had spotted. And that decision paid off! This Humpback surfaced right next to our boat several times and also offered some stunning looks at its fluke. The third Humpback we visited also raised its fluke twice - as if it was saying goodbye to us as we headed back. But even on the way back we still got to see lots of Harbour Porpoises, in small pods but all in all about 50+ scattered individuals throughout the tour in and many birds around the boat.

-Linda/Megan

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We started the morning tour in calm waters but with a bit of rain. Even though the visibility was slightly decreased we were soon able to spot our first Minke Whale. It was the first one of 3-4 different individuals. All of them seemed to be quite busy feeding - moving quickly and only rarely surfacing. We decided to leave them behind in search of some other animals and found a number of Harbour Porpoise pods. They seemed to be everywhere, at least 100+ individuals throughout the tour. At times they surrounded our boat from almost all sides and gave us some great looks at their bodies as they were racing through the waves. After enjoying these little fellows for a while we moved on to a pod of White Beaked Dolphins. There were at least 5-7 animals, surfacing very close to the boat at times - again an amazing look at another species! On the way back we spotted a Humpback Whale blow from afar, but did not manage to find the animal before having to return to Reykjavik spotting a another Minke Whale that surfaced twice relatively close to the boat. Fantastic ending.

-Linda/MeganBirds seen on today´s tour: Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Eider Ducks, Common Guillemots, Razorbills, Glaucous Gulls, Black Backed Gulls, Gannets.